Momentum Visualization allows users to view and animate current flow in conductors and slots.

Manufacturing Case Study

Momentum is a software tool from Agilent that helps predict the performance of high-frequency circuit boards, antennas, and ICs without extensive fabrication cost. It runs directly from the layout environment of the Agilent Advanced Design System.

E8922A Momentum Visualization allows users to view and animate current flow in conductors and slots. For Antenna designers, it also provides plots of 3D and 2D far-field antenna patterns and calculates and displays antenna parameters.

Agilent Advanced Design System Layout information is combined with the Momentum substrate definition (substrate thickness and layer) to produce a 3D spatial representation of circuit geometries.

Momentum Visualization gives the designer interactive control to dynamically zoom, pan, and rotate the 3D geometry to gain a better spatial understanding of the layer and conductor stack.

Surface current visualization gives designers an intuitive understanding of the electrical performance of the structure. Designers can even rotate structures in space while viewing animated plots to gain the best perspective.

By sweeping the phase through the input source, the traveling and standing waves can be viewed as they are animated through the structure. Designers can also set the amplitude and phase of sources at multiple ports to view how signals combine.

Momentum simulates designs under open and closed boundary conditions. While it can simulate the coupling effects of a package lid and side walls, it does not require a box or enclosure to do so. Using open-boundary conditions allows simulation of circuits like patch antennas. Far-field plots of the electric and magnetic field magnitudes of radiating elements can be displayed.

Antenna designers can display 3D far-field plots, which illustrate beam shapes and side lobes in both azimuth and elevation, on a single plot. The software calculates a number of antenna parameters, including: